Camper Overweight / Overload

[Ankie81]

My friend and I ara planning to travel by camper through Asia as of March 2020 !! However, during our preparations we learned that we are likely to be overweighted. Well we.... our camper. According to our papers, maximum weight is permitted at 3500 kg. We can not find in online forums any experiences about this issue and we don't have a clue if that will lead to problems at the customs of country's like Iran, Mongolia, Kazakhstan etc. Therefore I would like to inquire here with experience experts Am curious to hear form you and hope you want to share something about it with us Kind regards, Anke

[rkvis]

In my opinion there are two questions:
Do you really have to take all those things and all those weight with you?
Does the driver has a license for over 3500 kg?
If the driver doesn´t have the license your trip could be over before you are even out of Europe. I think I don´t have to tell you and you already know it: too heavy is not good for the camper, it can be dangerous, it can cost lots of money, you insurance is invalid, if the police find out you have to reduce the weight before continuing the trip. On such a long trip I wouldn´t take the change. I don´t think its pleasant to have to worry at each border or each police control. Is it really unpossible to reduce the weight?

[drivingthefareast]

HI,

Nice trip up ahead, Do it!!

About the camper thing,

As said before, you normal drivers licence will not be valid. Your camper insurance will not be valid if they find out about the weight(well how would they find out)

About the camper itself. On good roads(read western European or similar) the weight is probably not going to be an issue for your camper. They are build to take stuff. Based on my experience, my Beetle did well up to the point where the roads got really bad. At this point it will create some strange, special problems.

I would serious recommend to try reducing the weight of the camper.

Have fun.

Cheers Niek.

[Yunez]

Also take into account that on an overloaded truck your brakes may overheat on a long downhill stretch - which will result in a sudden loss of them.

[Lovetheworld]

I don't think you will have much issues as paperwork or border crossings, but you are creating an unnecessary risk for it.

To overload a camper and drive over bad roads (central asia, mongolia) is just a bad idea. Many stuff can break.

I am not sure what kind of car it is. Some are really strong, and then tuned down a bit to drive on normal drivinglicense.
Like any Mercedes van that starts with a number 5. If it starts with 3, don't overload it.

[Ankie81]

Thank you so much for thinking along with me!! Really appreciate that
About the camper itself: that won't be a problem at all, since it is build for a 4100kg load. Only on the formal paper it has been put on 3500kg. So when it just comes to the safety of the camper we will be perfectly fine. Also we will try to loose weight as much as possible during our travel trough Europe, since the rules are very strict in Europe indeed. But when we are in Iran, Kazachstan, Mongolia for example we will have a sleight overload since we will carry/need more water, fuel etc on board. Just wondering if the rules are very strict up there when it just comes to the paper work and formalities. I heard that the rules about weight differ from Europe up there. Thanks again for all the advices